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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife has been topping most best books of lists for 2011 (see e.g. The New York Times, Amazon) so I was looking forward to sinking my teeth into it. While I must admit that it took me about half the book to really fall into it, it is most definitely a beautifully written, soulful book. What this book is about at its core is death - it is everywhere you turn in this book, and haunts all of the characters. Even though the book is undoubtedly dark (it is about death after all) it is also filled with great old fashioned storytelling that sets an almost whimsical tone to the book. The Tiger's Wife is set in a purposefully undisclosed country in the Balkans (I assume the country is what is now Serbia) shortly after the wars of the 1990s are over. There are new boundaries and country names, but the wounds are still deep, and the dangers of the war remain, both in the physic sense, through peoples remaining anger and mistrust towards each other and in a physical sense, through the many mines still dotting the countryside. The book follows a young doctor, Natalia, and she travels to an orphanage across the border (I think it what is now Croatia) to deliver vaccines shortly after she learns that her beloved grandfather, also a doctor, has died. Woven in with Natalia's journey to discover how her grandfather died are two fables told to her by her grandfather - "the deathless man" and "the tiger's wife." These tales fill as much of the book if not more than Natalia's story. I must admit, I expected to fall in love with the book more than I did. Although it was a beautifully written and thought provoking book, it was sometimes difficult to follow. I definitely think it is a book that would benefit from a second read, which I intend to to do. More about the book and this common Balkan kebab like dish after the jump.

It is hard to believe that Tea Obreht is only 26 years old, and was even younger when she wrote this novel. It is an incredibly unique novel that pushes the reader's imagination, and is written in a completely confident manner. Obreht asks the reader to imagine that the fairly benign modern incarnation of the grim reaper exists, a man who hunts bears can turn into one, and a tiger can walk out of his skin and become a man (and husband). These myths are woven in with the real life story of Natalia, and her grief after her fathers death. But it is frankly hard to tell the myth from the realty here - all parts of the book have a fairly dreamy quality, and I did find that I often asked myself whether what I was reading was supposed to be reality or myth? The whole book feels slightly off kilter. Natalia is a doctor who shortly after learning that her beloved grandfather has died, in a clinic far away village on the other side

Balkan Cevapi

There actually are some good scenes with food in The Tiger's Wife. But the best food scenes really revolved around the local seafood, which I did not have access to. So, instead I went for this Cevapi, which my online research revealed is a very, very ubiquitous dish in the Balkans, kind of like there hamburgers. And man am I glad I made this. It was definitely one of the easiest, yummiest, most useful dishes I have made for the blog yet. I highly recommend you make this, it is a very flavorful kebab, made with both ground beef and lamb. Unlike other things with ground meat, this reheated extremely well in the microwave for just a minute or two, so it is very convenient to make a large batch of and eat throughout the week. I served it with toasted pita and a thrown together salad of tomatoes (I know, not seasonal, but firm tomatoes work well in this salad), cucumbers, onions and parsley. Just add some olive oil and vinegar and let the flavors meld together for half an hour so. I adapted the Cevapi recipe found here, I oomphed the flavor by using more garlic and keeping both the onions and garlic raw before adding to the meat mixture. This made for a very strong flavored kebab, which is what I like. If you want a more mellow flavor, use only one clove of garlic and saute the onions and garlic in some olive oil until wilted, 5 minutes.

Over a medium bowl, grate the onion with the largest holes of a box grater. Leave onion and juice in bowl.

Add garlic, meat, paprika, parsley and salt and pepper and mix thoroughly, hands work best. (Note: I did not measure the salt I used, I would say it was about 1 teaspoon, don't want to skimp the salt here).

Form the meat into small logs. Put the logs in a plastic container, cover, and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Cook the cevapi on a grill or grill pan. I used a grill pan, cooked them, turning often, for about 7-10 minutes each. You also could broil these.